South Dakota map, cut to the state line

The Black Hills are the showpiece. Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, Needles Highway and Spearfish Canyon all stack well as a topographic map. Visitors buy it after the trip, and locals in Rapid City buy it because it is home.

Riders are a real market. The Sturgis rally brings motorcycles into the Hills every August, and riders want the loop they rode. Import the GPX from their ride and engrave it over the terrain. See route maps.

East River is the hometown market: Sioux Falls, Brookings, Vermillion, Aberdeen, Mitchell. And the Missouri River lakes, Oahe, Sharpe, Francis Case and Lewis and Clark, bring anglers who want their stretch of water.

Pheasant hunting brings hunters back to the same farms every fall, and a map of the land they hunt, with a star on the lodge or the farmhouse, is a gift for the whole group. Sioux Falls sells as a hometown map with Falls Park at the center. Keep the falls area tight so the river bends read.

South Dakota is a wide, nearly rectangular shape with a wavy southeast corner where the Missouri River forms the border. The river also cuts right through the middle of the state, which is what East River and West River mean. Show it. At 4 in, put the Missouri as a water line down the center, I-90 across the state, I-29 up the east side, and a heart on the town.

For a West River buyer, try two elevation levels instead of roads. The Black Hills rise in the southwest corner and show even at ornament size.

Blue and yellow for the Jackrabbits, red and white for the Coyotes. A plain walnut backer behind birch reads like prairie in the fall.

A small star on Mount Rushmore makes a nice second pin for visitors who are buying the trip, not the hometown.